BENGALURU: Not many dare to knock on their door at odd hours. But on Saturday morning, several rowdies in the city were taken aback when they saw cops at their doorsteps.
The pre-dawn raids came in the backdrop of three recent daylight murders in the city. Police searched 2,144 houses of history-sheeters and anti-social elements and questioned 1,548 of them about their activities in the last few weeks. The nearly eight-hour raid began at 5am. Ganja, lethal weapons and vehicles without documents were seized.
“On Friday, deputy commissioners of eight divisions listed out the names and addresses of rowdies and miscreants in their respective divisions. A meeting was held in each DCP’s office at night where officials briefed the action plan. We were also looking at the involvement of these anti-social elements in drug peddling and land mafia,” a senior officer said.
As directed, officials from 112 law and order stations in the city left their stations by 4.30am. “Teams were led either by an assistant commissioner of police, inspector or a sub-inspector, depending on the criminal background of the miscreant,” an officer said.
The raid came as a surprise to most miscreants, but not for some. “History sheeters living in the west and south divisions, which witnessed murders recently, seem to have anticipated it. As we visited the houses of some hard-core criminals, we found nothing; not even a small knife, which is strange,” a police officer told STOI.
Former corporator Rekha Kadiresh was murdered in the west division while financier N Madan was killed in south division recently. At least 12kg of ganja and 91 lethal weapons like machetes and daggers were recovered. No pistols or revolvers were found.
